


Forevermore

by Mariyekos



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: (briefly) - Freeform, Angst, Bittersweet Ending, Brief mention of the DRG 70 Quest but otherwise no spoilers after that, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward Spoilers, Hraesvelgr (Final Fantasy XIV) - Freeform, Immortality, Lifelong Companions, Living Together, Love Confessions, M/M, but not together - Freeform, getting old, who are madly in love but don't feel like admitting it despite knowing the other feels the same
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:15:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29091162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mariyekos/pseuds/Mariyekos
Summary: Though Estinien returns mostly to normal after being freed from Nidhogg's grasp, some changes are permanent. A few patches of blackened skin. A better jump, a stronger swing. Largely ignorable things, hidden by clothes or explained away as simple improvements. But ten or so years down the line, Aymeric realizes that despite the many changes, some things haven't changed the slightest. And as the decades pass and Estinien remains the same, face unchanging, frozen in time, the whispers of the people of Ishgard begin to change  with them. From hated wyrm's vessel to admired hero to Haldrath's second coming to so much more. Estinien doesn't care much for any of it. But he does care for Aymeric, forever at his side, unfrozen and continuing to move with the hands of time toward an ending Estinien does not wish to arrive.
Relationships: Aymeric de Borel/Estinien Wyrmblood
Comments: 8
Kudos: 41





	Forevermore

**Author's Note:**

> Here we go. I've been sitting on this one for a couple of days. It's also something I've been thinking about for a long while. You see, in one of the Heavensward side quests, you get either a piece of armor or some other centuries-old thing from a transformed heretic, implying that people who drink of enough dragon's blood to transform have extended lifespans. Since Estinien was used as basically the number 1 dragon's vessel (Midgardsormr is dead and doesn't count, Hraesvelgr can be tied), having his aether corrupted and his body transformed into Actually Nidhogg for a while, I imagine he'd be impacted even more than some guy who drank one vial of a lesser dragon's blood once. Of course, he doesn't want pseudo-immortality, nor would he even expect it until the effects were clear. Hence this fic, exploring what would happen as he has to deal with that realization and the talk of people who do not know the full truths and think gossiping is the highlight of life.  
> This fic is Not Happy, Angst heavy, and meant to have a sort of air of despair that I have achieved to some extent that has gone up and down in the various revisions I've done. It's definitely lighter than the first draft, but it's still supposed to spiral down.  
> Anyway if you're still reading after all that, I hope that my ideas come across well, and without further ado, enjoy.

Though the majority of his transformation had been reversed after Nidhogg’s soul had released the tight hold it had kept on Estinien’s body, the monster’s aether receding and abandoning the flesh it had warped and twisted once into a mockery of neither of them and twice-again into Nidhogg’s own form, Estinien’s body never fully returned to the way it used to be. Blackened patches and thick red veins replaced the light skin that had previously existed under where the Eyes had melded to his body, reaching down from his right forearm to the edge of his right wrist, growing out from his left shoulder to the edge of his neck and the left side of his chest. 

Estinien hated it. Even if he had eventually triumphed over Nidhogg, the distortion was a permanent reminder of the weakness that had allowed Nidhogg to take control of him in the first place. A visual defilement to ensure he would never forget the terrible deeds Nidhogg had done while puppetting around his body made so much more via aetherial manipulation, the cruelties and horrors and everything else he’d inflicted that most likely would have never occurred had Estinien not picked up the second Eye or had he at least remembered to steel himself when doing so. 

It was easy enough to hide, at least. Gloves for the bit that snaked onto his wrist. Long sleeves for the corruption that marred his forearm, chest, and shoulder, high collars so no one would see the impurity that crawled up the bottom of his neck.

He couldn’t eliminate the evidence that Nidhogg had ever used him as his vessel. Not in the slightest. But he could at least hide it from others, and while clothed shield himself from having to acknowledge it when he wasn’t in the mood or didn’t bear the emotional capacity to think much on it. 

It had its physical benefits, at least. Improved jumps, a sturdier frame, faster reflexes. For all he despised some of Nidhogg’s ‘gifts,’ he couldn’t deny the value brought by others. Changes to allow him to protect what was dear to him. Boons to eliminate threats to what he treasured most.

One of the Warrior of Light’s friends, Krile, had told him his aether had been permanently impacted by the ordeal, but it wasn’t as if he could tell. He’d never been sensitive to the stuff. So how was he meant to react when she told him that his aether had been forever altered, no longer purely that of an elezen even if it was nowhere near as overpowering as it had been in the days and weeks Nidhogg’s soul had nearly consumed his? Upon meeting Alberic she’d declared his slightly altered too. Nowhere near as much as Estinien’s, but at least somewhat after all the years he’d spent as Azure Dragoon. 

If Alberic was fine more than two decades later, Estinien would be as well, he assured himself. Even if his exposure had been over a longer period and far more intensely for a significant portion of it, having run off with the Eye rather than returning it to the Vault after battle and then physically melding with not one, but both of them. 

He held onto that hope for a few years. In the time when the changes he could see could be hidden, and the changes he couldn’t were largely out of his mind. 

In the time when he would laugh at the oddities a few brave souls brought, teasing them for being so suspicious of every little thing. Roll his eyes at those who suggested maybe something severe was not right, behind the wall he tended to put up between himself and those not close to him. Brush off the occasional doubts that floated into his mind from his own thoughts alone, assuring himself that aside from a few visual discrepancies and a slight physical bonus, he was no different than he had been before. He would be fine.

And so he continued to live his life as he wished. Working to broker a peace between man and dragon that was as well received as it could be by both parties, made difficult by the persistence of rogue factions in both groups who did not wish their thousand-year war to end in anything other than the total elimination of the other. Working with the Alliance to maintain peace between men, mostly serving as a soldier rather than diplomat for which he was glad. Working with Aymeric to ensure both tasks ran smoothly, to protect him from the Ishgardians who did not like the changes he had wrought, to monitor his health and wellbeing so he didn’t collapse because he regarded others far too highly and seemed to forget he had any need to take care of himself half the time.

Aymeric, his lifelong companion. Aymeric, who had been the first to seriously broach the topic with him. Aymeric, who he confided in as the slight terror of realization built in his gut, growing over time as his attempts at denial faded with each and every day the changes- well, really, the  _ lack _ of changes became more evident.

When Estinien briefly returned to Ishgard after the incident with Faunehm, Aymeric had insisted he allow his portrait to be done. He was a hero, whether he wanted to be or not, and people wanted his image to be preserved. It would be some sort of national motivation or pride, or some such nonsense. Estinien grumbled about it plenty, but he sat the several hours it took anyway, face blank as some artist whose name he didn’t know did his best to capture Estinien’s likeness on canvas.

It was reproduced in a few places Estinien did not care to visit. He thought there might have been miniatures made as well. He did not care to look into those either, never caring much for his appearance and less so for its reproductions.

But however many copies were made, it was impossible to deny the artist had done a fantastic job with the original. Aymeric kept that particular portrait for himself.

So when Estinien passed in front of the portrait on a daily basis in his visits to Aymeric’s study, just down the hall from the bedroom he kept in the de Borel mansion, it wasn’t hard for Aymeric to pick up on the fact that well over a decade later Estinien looked no different at all, aside from slightly longer hair and a new scar across the bottom of his left cheek that he’d attained trying to calm a dragon driven near-mad from causes he’d long since forgotten.

Though Estinien’s initial displeasure had come from the ways in which Nidhogg had changed his appearance, the displeasure and discomfort and apprehensiveness and unease that came when he realized that Nidhogg had also someone  _ stopped _ the changes of his body were so much worse.

Not that the initial changes had ever gone away, or stopped as they started. The black markings grew ever so slightly year by year, just by fractions of an ilm, but enough that they were clearly larger than they had been when they first appeared by the time the true ageing realization had occurred. The red veins had climbed half an ilm up the pale, previously skin-colored scars that had been left by the glowing red power of Nidhogg’s aether upon the first possession. Some of the patches began to harden, the beginnings of what he would later realize were scales forming there.

Aymeric was always polite about it. Always reassuring. Estinien wasn’t Nidhogg, he would never be Nidhogg, and no matter what he looked like the spirit he was born with would remain. 

It couldn’t completely erase his unease, though. Not in the days when he tried to deny it, to tell himself he was just aging  _ well _ rather than  _ not at all _ , that maybe he thought the corruption had expanded because he spent so much time trying not to look at it that he’d forgotten how large it had originally been and imagined it smaller.

Still, there was no denying the effect Aymeric’s words had on him. Calming. Reassuring. Treasured.

Once, when he had been particularly upset over finding the first scale fully-formed enough to shed, Estinien had snapped back at Aymeric, laughing bitterly as he asked how his spirit could be the same if his aether had long since been permanently corrupted. How the unblemished spirit of an elezen could reside within a body with distinctly not-elezen characteristics, formed by a corruption of aether that could not be reversed.

Anger had bubbled in his chest then. Warmed his shoulder and forearm, tickled his chest and wrist.

Aymeric did not flinch. 

You two are and always will be separate, he insisted. Aether might be thought of as the base of one’s soul, but a spirit was something else entirely, and nothing could take that away from someone. So long as they lived on, their spirit would too. Their spirit alone, no one else’s. No one’s reflection; no one’s shade.

Estinien’s anger crumbled at that, drifting away in a deep breath and a deep sigh and the release of a mountain of stress he hadn’t realized had been built so high. He apologized for his words, internally berated himself for giving in to the anger that he feared may have been a remnant of something of Nidhogg given what parts of him had reacted so strongly, went limp when Aymeric wrapped his arms around Estinien’s body and pulled him into a tight embrace...

The incident was never mentioned again. Aymeric went about his duties as Lord Speaker, having passed the role of Lord Commander to Lucia so he could put his whole focus into leading and molding the reforms Ishgard so desperately needed, and Estinien went about his duties as dragon diplomat slash bodyguard slash whatever it was he needed to be at the time. He had no official position. He simply did whatever Aymeric (and thus Ishgard) needed at the moment, usually in some way related to combat. Hunts sometimes. Occasionally training exercises, in the early days. Very rarely he helped train dragoons. Any and all major battles that occurred, on the front lines from the beginning to the end.

Even if much of Ishgard didn’t care for him, he still cared for it. On one hand he felt a duty to make up for Nidhogg’s actions- those committed while the Wyrm fed upon his soul and those committed long before Estinien had been born, an unignorable urge bubbling at the bottom of his gut to push him on. On the other hand, he simply enjoyed seeing Ishgard succeed. Regardless of its faults or its people’s feelings for him, it was his home and he’d fought and bled for it plenty. He took pride in their military and their domestic successes, and something warm stirred inside him every time he saw a new dragoon find that spark of inner power that allowed them to perform their first real Jump. 

A new generation was coming of age, freed of the shackles of war that for so long their forefathers had worn and never so much as considered shedding. He wished them the best, aiding where he could but being careful not to overstep any boundaries.

Still, as much as he did enjoy the occasional training session, it wasn’t as though they occupied a significant portion of his time. His presence made people uncomfortable. Whispers of a traitor. Whispers of a savior. Whispers of anything and everything that was somehow Different than them, that though he never showed it, wore at Estinien. And set the regular instructors on edge, their soldiers’ minds wandering to places that courted danger while a man who was known to possess somewhat of a temper and a lance arm better than them all stood nearby. 

He was welcome for infrequent visits. Neither he nor any squadron leaders wanted him around any more often than that.

Instead, Estinien spent his time doing other things.

He joined Aymeric on his trips to the various orphanages that peppered Ishgard and Coerthas, watching as the man spoke to the children who lived there with bright eyes and a kind smile. He always seemed to light up around children. And did so well with them, especially compared to Estinien who swore he was growing more and more distant by the day. Alphinaud was the youngest person he talked to regularly, and he hadn’t been a child or even teenager in years. Dragoon and Temple Knight trainees with their wide eyes and constant whispers didn’t count.

Once Estinien had asked, voice light as if saying a joke and soul heavy both knowing and dreading the answer and reason for it, whether Aymeric would like to adopt one day. After all, Aymeric had been adopted and loved his adoptive parents. He’d mentioned adoption in their days as Temple Knights together. And there was no denying how well he did with the children he visited, nor how happy he seemed to be around them.

Aymeric’s voice was quiet when he responded, words Estinien had expected but did not wish to hear.

Though he loved children, Aymeric said, he simply didn’t have the time.

Which was true, but it wasn’t the full reason, so Estinien pressed him more.

The smile Aymeric had been wearing fell, his eyes half shut. He asked Estinien if  _ he _ wanted to have children. Either his own or adopted, as the both of them had been, though one much later in life.

Estinien did not respond, and Aymeric’s fallen smile came back as something akin to a grimace.

You need not ask questions you know the answer to, Aymeric said. When Estinien opened his mouth to offer some sort of retort, with what words and what idea he never did quite figure out, Aymeric simply shook his head. He was happy, he said. He enjoyed the life he had, and would not trade his companions for anything in the world. These children would find much happier lives with someone other than a politician who spent far too much time at the discussion table and far too little time at his own table. They deserved a whole, loving family who could devote their all to them rather than what little was left over at the end of the day; something which he was sure would come for them sooner rather than later now that the massive influx of war-orphans had stopped and surviving spouses meant more families felt stable enough to adopt. 

Not that Aymeric was discontent with his own family, he insisted. He liked his own family, one made of bond rather than blood, rather much. Wouldn’t give it up if Halone herself came and offered him entrance to paradise for abandoning it.

Estinien warned Aymeric he was consorting heresy saying such things.

Aymeric laughed back, saying he was confident Estinien could get him out of any heresy accusations thrown his way. It wouldn’t be the first time for either of them, with what had gone on in The Vault and with Ysayle. But it would be the end of that conversation. An end to a topic that never again came up in words, even though they both must surely have thought of it every time they visited an orphanage and the longing appeared in Aymeric’s eyes that Estinien pretended to ignore.

* * *

The years passed. Aymeric’s black curls began to lighten. Strands of gray made their way in, earlier than they would for many, but reasonable given the stress Aymeric was constantly under.

Estinien’s hair was white from birth, so it wasn’t as if he was going to be shocked by not finding grey hairs. His grandfather’s had been white when he was born, when he was alive, and when he died. His father had not lived long enough for his blonde strands to lighten any more than they started. Maybe Estinien was being spared some sort of pain that way.

His visits to the training grounds lessened, over the years. After the first decade, it had seemed he’d simply aged with grace. By the second, it was clear something was different about him. Something Other. 

The nervous whispers that followed Estinien since his being freed from Nidhogg’s grasp changed day by day, morphing into distant admiration or respect before eventually becoming something uncomfortably close to reverence.

On the days immediately after regaining his body and mind, Estinien had often kept the infirmary window just the slightest bit open, allowing sound and fresh air to drift in from the outside. Sound like the gossip of those who thought him a monster; a terrible demon who should’ve been killed the moment he returned to the form of an elezen, just as responsible as Nidhogg for the deaths at Falcon’s Nest and the other places the great Wyrm had attacked over those several long weeks reaching into months. Some of the infirmary staff would whisper outside his door when they thought him asleep, worried over the blackened patches on his skin and whether they were an indicator that Nidhogg had not truly left him or that he’d given himself willingly. An indicator Nidhogg was not dead. That after lulling them into a place of complacency, Aymeric had lured them into inviting death right in. 

Then there were those who hailed him as a savior. 

Aymeric had done his best to push that narrative - insisting it was Estinien’s strength of will that had stopped Nidhogg from making the final push into Ishgard after his fight with Hraesvelgr and then the Warrior of Light on the Steps of Faith. Which, while technically true, Estinien supposed, sounded much more grand than what Estinien had actually done. He’d stopped Nidhogg for a time, but only a time. Had the Warrior and Alphinaud not been there, he’d have either ended his own life or let Nidhogg rampage on until nothing remained. Hopefully it would’ve been the former. He’d tried for the former. His allies had simply stopped him with their idiotic, dangerous, ultimately successful alternative.

Still, though some admired him, for a long while the fear far outweighed the positivity. 

He got another portrait in some grand part of the Vault he always walked past with his head down. Wind-up dolls that looked nothing like him other than having vaguely the right skin tone and a set of mock-dragoon armor sold as fast as they could be produced. Some sort of official declaration and thanks were pronounced at a ceremony he didn’t even attend, not feeling the need to listen to grand speeches about a war he had experienced far more intensely than any of the spineless fools who spoke them. 

But no one spoke  _ to _ him on the streets the few times he visited Ishgard in the months following the end of the Dragonsong War. They spoke  _ of _ him plenty- but that was no guarantee of praise. The gazes that fell on his back were not of awe or admiration.

That changed a few years later, after he returned to Ishgard for a more permanent stay, a fixture by Aymeric’s side. More of the conversations about him were about his positive contributions to Ishgard. His negotiations with Hrasevelgr to lay the foundations for Aymeric’s peace treaty. His convincing the heretics who led the attack on Ishgard so many years before to stand down after talks with their leader. His escorting the Elder Seedseer alongside the Entwined Serpent Guard during her visits to Ishgard, Coerthas, and the Sea of Clouds to examine the areas’ potential for recovery from the Calamity’s effects. His defense of Falcon’s Nest when a bloated Yeti and its pack of mutated companions nearly eliminated the guard that had been stationed there, swooping in at the last moment to stall and eventually defeat the monsters while a group of city-based astrologians rushed in behind him to tend to the wounded. True stories of good deeds that weren’t deserving of nearly as much praise as they got.

He supposed it was probably for the best for everyone, to be treated as less of a monster and more a source of national pride. That wasn’t what he had ever imagined for himself; as a child he never expected to venture far from Ferndale and as a trainee and later Temple Knight he’d worked to become Azure Dragoon to kill Nidhogg and get revenge, not praise. But admiring the man who stood by their top governmental official was probably far better than fearing him. He imagined it would feel quite terrible for people to have their hearts jump out of their chest in worry every time Estinien walked down the street because they thought him some permitted enemy. Maybe it was better for them to think him some national boon, to take away whatever worry or discomfort or fear his mere presence could cause. Though with fear gone people grew bolder with their whispers, not working quite so hard to hide them from him, and his days grew noisier. More grating.

Still, it was beneficial in the end. He always felt so bad for Aymeric when he had to deal with the fallout of Estinien’s actions and the people’s perception of him. Even if he didn’t join Aymeric in his daily discussions with the Houses, he did come along on Aymeric’s trips around the city and beyond, and the way people shot nervous glances to Estinien instead of focusing entirely on Aymeric during their conversations had long since gotten old. And must have frustrated Aymeric.

Aymeric, of course, always insisted it was of no great concern, and probably far more discouraging for Estinien than himself. He wasn’t offended because people liked to direct their looks of wonder toward the far more interesting member of their little pair.

Estinien laughed back, asking when wonder had become a synonym for fear.

Aymeric frowned. You mustn’t berate yourself so, he said. A monster may have captured you for a time, but that does not make  _ you _ a monster forevermore. He would see. One day they would as well.

At that, Estinien went quiet. And so the two continued their journey through Coerthas to speak with the leaders of what settlements remained post-Calamity, seeing what aid they most needed and asking their thoughts on the change taking place within the city. Some they spoke to kept their eyes on Aymeric. Some instead focused entirely on the figure standing mere ilms to the back and right. Some nervously switched between the two.

Some eventually switching between the two not because of fear, but because Aymeric had been right and their gazes did turn to those of wonder. Curiosity. Awe. The man who had defeated Nidhogg, defended the Steps of Faith, guarded their beloved leader with his entire being, the ultimate devoted knight. The man who rumor said was somehow frozen in time, perhaps a gift from Halone for his service. What an honor it was to be chosen in one of his frequent pilgrimages across Coerthas. Which were not, in fact, pilgrimages, but Estinien could only spend so much time trying to convince people of the fact before growing tired of the repetition and dropping the attempts altogether.

* * *

At some point the public learned of the truth of Haldrath’s death: that Nidhogg’s missing Eye had fused to his body, suspending it as it was for a millennium after his soul departed for Halone’s sweet embrace.

Estinien hated the whispers that came after that.

When he had first joined the Temple Knights, armed with a lance and dreaming of joining the Dragoons, some of the nobles who cursed a commoner for infiltrating their ranks liked to mock him by saying he was boldly trying to be a second Haldrath; a hero above them all, rushing to lead the charge against the Wyrm that had slain his father and friends. Something far beyond the realm of possibility for a lowborn, no-blood as him. Their words were condescending, full of venom meant to let him know they believed his dreams to be childish and bound to fail.

But they didn’t. At least, not completely. He at least aided in Nidhogg’s defeat, even if he did not succeed as fully or without company as he’d wished. The Eyes might have claimed him for a time, but before they did he killed the body, and for at least a little while he stopped Nidhogg from reaching his final destination on his path of destruction.

So the parallels were there. Two men, losing family and friend to Nidhogg. Two men, setting out for revenge, ripping an Eye (or two) from the Great Wyrm’s head. Two men, wielding the power of the Eye on a journey throughout the land, named Azure Dragoon and eventual savior. 

And three decades on, with the truth of Haldrath’s lack of degradation in the open and Estinien’s frozen visage clear for everyone to see, they were two men, suspended in time. One dead, one living.

Estinien tried to ignore the excited, breathy chatter of those who called him Haldrath reborn. 

You are Estinien, and Estinien alone, Aymeric would remind him. Not Nidhogg, not Haldrath. Just Estinien.

And Estinien he would be, resting in Aymeric’s study as he worked. Sitting across from him at the grand dinner table meant for a large family but only seating two. Leaning on the wall of Aymeric’s bedroom when he tried to creep in late at night as if he hadn’t been working in his office until the twelfth bell yet again, far later than Lucia or Estinien wanted him to. Lounging on the couch together, Aymeric’s head on his shoulder, both holding glasses of wine slightly askew and dangerously close to spilling red courage all over the nice plush fabric they rested on.

Aymeric could only do so much. He could make Estinien relax in private. Forget for a time the rumors that ran constantly through Ishgard as though the people had absolutely nothing else to talk about despite the numerous changes and events occurring both within and outside of the city. He could make comments in public about how Estinien was just a man, an elezen who may be aging just a bit slower because of Nidhogg’s influence, but still mortal. A friend  _ he _ treasured but not a  _ national _ treasure to be regarded and protected at all times. He was a person, not some  _ thing _ meant to be gawked at.

When someone had the gall to suggest Estinien be assigned a personal guard he actually speared the man. Through somewhere he knew wouldn’t bleed too much, and with an astrologian ten yalms away to fix the damage once the arsehole had received the message. But he wasn’t having it. He didn’t need to be protected. He could protect himself. He knew of nothing that could or wanted to threaten him, and he wasn’t some glass doll to admire from afar.

Aymeric hadn’t been very pleased in the moment, but he’d forgiven Estinien afterwards, back in the de Borel Mansion (de Borel-Wyrmblood mansion, people had started to call it, given how long Estinien had been living there). He assured Estinien no more proposals of that nature would be made, so long as Aymeric held any political sway. The look of determination that peered out from beneath near-entirely grey bangs was strong.

* * *

Still, the rumors continued. 

The years passed and the nails on Estinien’s right hand, always hidden away by at least a pair of gloves if not gauntlets, turned into claws. He could no longer wear thin shirts, the scales on his left shoulder tearing through delicate fabric if he moved it too quickly or brushed it up against something so it caught the wrong way. His shoulder blades and lower back began to ache ever so slightly when it rained, phantom pains for phantom limbs that had not been there in decades but he feared might someday return. 

No one knew of this. No one but Aymeric. Always Aymeric. 

But the rumors, focused on other things, continued nonetheless.

Maybe he wasn’t Haldrath reborn. Or maybe not just Haldrath reborn. Maybe Wyrmblood was a literal term, the people began to say.

His hair, white as snow from the roots to the small of his back (a length resembling Ysayle’s, reached first simply because he hadn’t bothered to cut it regularly, but lasting once he realized the parallel), matched the light scales of Hraesvelgr and his brood. Specifically Vidofnir, who remained his chosen messenger and envoy to man so many years later. Estinien’s eyes, a blue now closer to indigo than the stormy color he’d been born with, may have been different than Vidofnir’s red, but the stories said Hraesvelgr’s were gold, so that didn’t mean anything. His strength was beyond that of normal Elezen, his skin smooth as a man with fifty fewer summers.

Maybe he was named Wyrmblood because he was  _ of _ Wyrm’s blood. Either gifted by Hraesvelgr for his service, or from a cross between Wyrm and Elezen somewhere down the line. Had Hraesvelgr and Shiva somehow managed to produce a child? Was he some long lost heir, come to broker peace with his great-great-something-grandsire?

How and why people decided to completely abandon his connection to Nidhogg for a few years Estinien did not know. It was all completely ridiculous, near  _ grating _ as time went on. Exhausting. He wished they would just shut up. But he did know that, contrary to anything he would’ve thought a decade or three before, he’d much rather have people complaining about his being Nidhogg’s vessel again. 

A pact with Hraesvelgr? The spawn of he and Shiva? Where people came up with such nonsense was beyond Estinien. Wyrmblood was a title he earned from slaying dragons and coming back with his armor stained red, the blood of lesser wyrms never quite so bright or all-covering as Nidhogg’s, but a pain to remove nonetheless. He was a boy from a small village that had never used last names due to having few enough people not to need them, who ended up with a nickname that stuck. Not some sort of dragonspawn come from out from over the hills because he was upset his families were fighting each other.

Even Aymeric’s reassurances couldn’t quite erase the annoyance that built in his gut at the latest round of rumors. He was tired of the gazes. Tired of the whispers. Fed up with the assumptions, the ‘confirmed’ information that was growing more outlandish and more incorrect by the day. By that time he’d spent more of his life as a strange object subject to the people’s whims, an Other they feared or admired or  _ revered _ at times, than he had as just a man who hadn’t particularly enjoyed others’ conversations about him anyway. 

Each year the talk continued, he wore down. From an initial annoyance, to anger, to something growing close to a pessimistic apathy. He wondered what was left. What he would feel next, if anything.

* * *

That theory didn’t last particularly long. Not in its original form, at least. Eventually the people of Ishgard ran out of new ideas so they just started combining their old theories about him, melding them to fit whatever was going on at the time because apparently absolutely nothing in Eorzea was more interesting than the great Viscount Aymeric’s companion and guard; a man who had been spending less and less time within the city walls in favor of negotiations with or aid given to the dragons, and even then most of it only within the de Borel mansion before sneaking out of the city once more to ignore the stares of those younger than him. 

Most people were younger than him, by then. Not all. And it certainly didn’t look like it. But he remembered the year he had been born and could do the math to calculate his age if he wanted to. He didn’t like thinking about it much.

After all, every year he got older, looking the same as always, was a year Aymeric got older. They were only a month apart. 

And while Estinien’s skin remained as smooth as it had ever been, bones as strong or stronger than they had been seven decades before, reflexes quick and mind sharp…

Aymeric aged gracefully. For a man who had reached the triple digits, he was in fairly good health. He could move without aid if he wanted, though he occasionally used a cane for particularly long trips such as his unending tradition of visiting all of the orphanages in Ishgard and the immediate surrounding areas at least once a year. It had been all of those in Coerthas, a few dozen years before but… 

He slept well enough. He slept more than he did when he was younger, that was for sure, and it was a miracle he had made it so long with how he had treated himself. Estinien could recall many a time when he or Lucia had been forced to step in.

And oh, Lucia.

Aymeric had delivered a moving speech at her funeral. Something that would likely be quoted at wakes for years to come. And when it was over they walked back to the de Borel mansion, Aymeric’s shaking hand holding tightly onto Estinien’s elbow until they made it into the sitting room and he collapsed onto the couch, sobbing and sobbing with Estinien’s arms wrapped tight around him, Estinien wishing he could protect Aymeric from the world as Aymeric had done for him, but feeling so utterly incompetent and unable to do a thing.

It hadn’t been the first funeral they had gone to together. Handeloup had perished in an uprising forty years before. Count Edmont de Fortemps had a heart attack at 93. No one would ever forget the ceremony held after Haurchefant’s passing. They had first truly bonded at the wake for the members of their squad who had died in the dragon attack that had really put Estinien and Aymeric on the radar for their eventual promotions, and put them in each other’s lives forevermore.

But it was a reminder that time was running out. Lucia had lived a long, fulfilling life. Ran the Temple Knights to the best of her ability, made a name for herself, eventually moved to a little house on the edge of the Firmament where she lived out the rest of her days alone but content with the companions she had. 

As Aymeric sobbed into Estinien’s arms, mourning the loss of one of his closest companions (one of the top two, really), all Estinien could think was-

What was he going to do, when it was Aymeric’s funeral he left?

Aymeric had Estinien. Estinien would be there to comfort him, whether it was reassuring words reminding him the deceased had lived a good life, or promises the perpetrators would be brought to justice, or tight hugs and circles on the back swearing for better days ahead and support that would never leave so long as he wished it.

Aymeric did the same when Estinien needed it. Less often. He’d spent too many years trying to pretend he was above emotions to reach higher grounds, and then too many years barring himself from feeling anything at all to stop from slipping into Nidhogg’s grasp. He’d thawed, over time, but spending so long as some sort of half-worshiped, half-feared pariah had started to freeze him to anyone but Aymeric and a small set of friends mostly accumulated during the years surrounding the end of the Dragonsong War. The apathy had grown. The fear of one specific loss had grown, clenching his heart and stilling his tongue to prevent him from ever mentioning it.

For all his gifts, Aymeric was only a man. Only an elezen.

What was Estinien supposed to do when Aymeric was gone? Who was he to go to? What was he to say? To feel? To think?

So as Aymeric shook in his arms, body wracked with sobs, Estinien began to shake as well.

He was scared to face the future. To think about how quickly the years were passing, he the same as always, Aymeric aging well but still  _ aging _ and oh the sorrows that would one day bring-

* * *

Eight decades since Nidhogg’s defeat, the battle had become legend. Those who had fought in it were old and weak or dead. Those who had been old enough to remember it were old enough to have begun forgetting the details, the colorful stories that had been told over the years powerful enough to distort the scenes they had witnessed into tales of wonder beyond what had originally occurred.

No longer did people call Estinien a demon. A pawn. A traitor. A cursed vessel who should have been killed when they still had the chance.

Maybe he  _ was _ Haldrath reborn. Maybe he  _ had _ drunk of Hraesvelgr’s blood, or been born of it. Maybe  _ neither _ were the case. Maybe both. The small parts didn’t matter. 

Eight decades on, word was that he was a messenger of Halone. A servant of the Fury, crafted by Her hands and sent down after a thousand years of war to at last bring peace to the land, trying to give it life even after a Calamity threatened to freeze the nation where it stood while a vengeful Wyrm raged to burn it down.

There were so many pieces of evidence, they said. He had slain Nidhogg, a feat no other had ever achieved, the only other person coming close being Haldrath, who had received of Halone’s blessing (and Ratatoskr’s Eyes, but the reception of such information was still shaky). He had taught the Warrior of Light, Savior of Eorzea and the world as a whole lancework, a skill which they used countless times in their defense of Ishgard and the beyond (nevermind the fact that Estinien himself had done very little, Alberic being a far better teacher than he). He had been the first to initiate negotiations with Hraesvelgr and his brood, and continued to serve as envoy of man to dragon over the rest of his time in Ishgard (which, while the latter half was true, excluded the fact that he had not been the one to want to negotiate in the first place and had only done so because others insisted on it). He defended Ishgard in its darkest hours, whether it was an attack by rogue members of Nidhogg’s brood seeking vengeance for their dead sire, empire attempts at subjugating their people in the midst of a failing war, monsters who had moved into man’s territory, uprisings by those who would rather tear down the social order than have it change to anything that did not fit with their too-old worldview, and so much more.

No mere man could do such a thing. No mere man would have  _ chosen _ or even  _ thought _ to initiate so many of those things without divine guidance. He was no mere man. No mere elezen. He was a messenger of their Goddess. Their Fury. A gift from above which they were oh-so-grateful for, so kind as to grace them with his assistance. 

Had Estinien still cared much for their words, maybe he would have tried to deny it as he’d tried to deny the rumors that chased him in his days as a Temple Knight and later Dragoon. Then again, even then he’d spent most of his time ignoring whatever was said, finding it a waste of time to fight back until the words became too grating and he let loose with a ferocity that likely would’ve gotten him thrown out had he not been the previous Azure Dragoon’s adopted son, not been such a good soldier, not been best friends with Aymeric of the silver tongue.

Had it not been for Aymeric, he likely would’ve left Ishgard a long time ago. He still loved the nation, in some respect. Wanted it to succeed. But he felt less and less like he belonged, the world changing without him and the people acting as if he was some Other.

Distant. Disconnected. Holding on by a single thread with bright blue eyes and the most lovely of smiles.

Aside from a single man, Ishgard no longer felt like home. Instead, he looked to the Churning Mists. At least the dragons didn’t treat him like some pseudo-deity. 

He wasn’t the only one that went to speak with them anymore. Hadn’t been for decades. He still went to see them in an official capacity, on about half of the trips the Ishgardian delegation took, but more often he visited on his own just because he felt like it. Everywhere he went in Ishgard he was followed by piercing stares. Some of the younger dragonets stared too, the handful that had been born after peace had been won that hadn’t known him back when he’d just been a regular elezen assisting with a cause he didn’t really believe in at the time. But their stares were different. Curious. Kind. And a few rowdy children were fine.

Mostly he checked up on Orn Khai. Said hello to Faunehm occasionally. Chatted with Vidofnir and spoke to the ever-so-serious Hraesvelgr. Visited some place or corpse or something that a piece of his soul ached for, brought by memories he had never  _ experienced _ so much as been  _ given _ .

Aymeric used to accompany him on those trips. But the journey was hard, even if one used an Aetheryte to get most of the way. And Aetheryte usage took its own toll, something that became harder and harder as one aged and their own aether grew thinner, making it harder to use such tools.

Aymeric’s body grew thinner too. 

Estinien’s did not.

And when time finally-

…

…

When Aymeric-

…

…

…

When he-

…

…

...

…

…

* * *

Estinien’s body was stiff, standing rigid against a pillar in Saint Raymanaud’s Cathedral as the current Archbishop led the rites after Aymeric’s-

...

He bit his lip. He wasn’t listening to a word the Archbishop said. His blood was rushing in his ears. 124 had been a good age. Not the oldest elezen to ever grace Ishgard’s streets. But not young by a long shot. It was a good age. A long life. A happy one.

…

But had it been? Had it been happy?

…

He’d certainly accomplished a lot. With Estinien at his side. Estinien in his home. Estinien with his arms wrapped around Aymeric’s sobbing body. Estinien walking shoulder to shoulder and leaping to action to prevent the fourth assassination attempt that decade. Estinien with his chest under Aymeric’s head as they laughed while sitting on a seat meant for one. Estinien frozen at his back as Aymeric played with children he would never adopt because as good as Aymeric was with children Estinien was not and he was terrified he would do something wrong and Aymeric was too polite to push it and too content to go along with what Estinien wanted. Estinien chuckling over a whiskey at some tiny bar in a small town in Coerthas that Aymeric had insisted on visiting personally after they had contributed so much material toward the most recent round of city repairs that he wanted to thank them himself, boisterous laughter filling the room and warmth washing over the both of them. Estinien gripping Aymeric’s bloody coat tightly and yelling at him that he had to hold on and was an idiot for rushing forward with sword but not shield to save some no-name solider that might have survived anyway while Aymeric insisted his life was no more precious than anyone else’s and Estinien’s attentions were better spent fighting rather than bawling over an injured friend but Estinien refused to let go.

Aymeric had lived a good life. Lord Commander for fifteen years. Lord Speaker for well over fifty. Judge and Consultant for another forty, working until the week before he died when something in Estinien knew that his time was about to be up and Estinien would not take no for an answer when he insisted Aymeric take the week off to live life and relax and enjoy time spent together. 

And oh what a lovely week it was.

They went to Zenith, Aymeric insisting he had enough strength to make at least one full Aetheryte trip, and Hraesvelgr greeted them on the ground instead of up on the top of the tower with far too many steps for Aymeric to even think about climbing. He must have known too.

They visited Haurchefant’s grave, Estinien leading the chocobo carriage that brought them there so it would be just the two of them, the path too steep and snow covered to walk at the time. The Warrior of Light’s was right beside it. Neither headstone had a body beneath. But while the graves were symbolic, they were where the two felt their owner’s souls likely rested, or had visited briefly before moving Beyond. It was a good trip.

They made their way to Azys Lla with the help of an Ironworks pilot, and Estinien walked Aymeric to the platform he’d chosen as Ysayle’s grave of sorts. She had one near Falcon’s Nest as well, but Azys Lla had been where her spirit last soared. Where Estinien had laid flowers every year on her birthday, a fact he learned from the people of Tailfeather because she’d never had the chance to tell him herself.

They ventured to the snow patch that was once Ferndale. Nothing remained anymore. Nothing that could be seen. Anything tall enough to peek through the snow had long since decayed, dragonflame having burnt and weakened most of the town and harsh weather having destroyed what remained.

Estinien still knew where it was, though. He technically owned the land, given to him when he was named Azure Dragoon so he wouldn’t be a completely basic commoner who had pierced the nobility’s rankings. But he’d never built anything there. There were a few headstones and nothing else. One for each family, the names carved onto markers that mostly had no bodies underneath. His family had been one of the few ‘lucky’ ones that made it out of the ordeal with flesh enough to move. 

Aymeric held onto Estinien for support when he slowly lowered himself onto his knees to offer flowers to their headstone, sending a prayer to Halone to protect the souls of those who were buried there, and the one who had survived. Eyes on Estinien as he whispered the last part.

They went home after that.

The three days after were spent lounging and being lazy. No meetings. No visits. Just them, relaxing and chatting and laughing and loving-

Estinien had his own bedroom. He always had, from the days he’d occasionally visited as a Temple Knight to the days he’d first moved in as a friend to the days he’d been there for a decade to the days he began to wonder if he would reach having lived there a century.

The last night, as he helped Aymeric into bed, giving him a hand to use as a prop to get in after having put up Aymeric’s cane, Aymeric asked him to stay. To spend the night in Aymeric’s bedroom instead of his own. Just for a little while. It was stormy outside, Aymeric explained, and he had a feeling the bursts of thunder would startle him awake. Maybe if you stay for a while, Aymeric whispered, your presence will be calming enough to somehow push the noise away. Maybe if he held Aymeric’s hand, things would be okay.

Estinien asked if he thought more contact would work better.

Aymeric said he thought it would.

So Estinien crawled into bed besides Aymeric, pulling close, curling around him.

And Aymeric whispered.

He whispered.

The three words.

The ones they never exchanged aloud, even if they both knew the other’s feelings.

Estinien’s voice broke as he tried to say them back. Said the first. Crack. Said the first two. Crack. 

Aymeric said it was fine.

But it wasn’t.

And Estinien said the three and he couldn’t see it because Aymeric’s face was pressed against his blackened neck and chest but he could feel Aymeric’s lips move against his skin as they formed a smile.

And Aymeric’s breaths slowed. Ignoring the hard rain batting at his window. Ignoring the crash of thunder. Slow breaths on Estinien’s chest. Slow. And slower. And slower.

And gone.

…

…

…

When the ceremony was over, Estinien waited until the cathedral had emptied to make his escape. For once in his life no one attempted to speak to him during the proceedings. Some stared. Some whispered. But the whispers didn’t last long. The whispers didn’t come close to him. They stayed away, and their owners stayed away, and then it was just Estinien and the Archbishop and a cor-

…

The Archbishop walked up to Estinien just as he turned to leave.

“Here,” he said, holding out an envelope. Estinien simply stared at it.

The archbishop wore a sad smile. Something knowing, even though he couldn’t possibly understand even half of the emotions raging through Estinien at the moment, half-smothered as he tried to recall the control he’d exerted while wielding the Eye and trying to keep his feelings dead and free from the threat of Nidhogg’s manipulations. He felt tired. Empty.

“I was nine when Nidhogg attacked the Steps, you know,” the Archbishop continued, realizing Estinien wasn’t planning to speak. Not that it was a sudden realization. From that blasted look he wore, it was clear the Archbishop never expected a response. “I remember the pure elation I felt at Nidhogg’s defeat; the feeling that Ishgard was on top of the world. That I was on top of the world, a boy whose mother fought alongside legends and came back to tell the tale.

“And I remember the whispers about the man Nidhogg had possessed in an attempt to finish his thousand year war. The rumors about a man whose flesh was transformed into that of a monster. 

“The man who, despite this transformation, managed to return to his own form long enough to stop the Dread Wyrm from burning our home to the ground. Who had been willing to give his life for the cause; though that was not something heard on the streets so much as from the mouth of my mother who had witnessed the ordeal herself and was not one to lie.”

The Archbishop’s gaze grew soft, Estinien no less stiff than he had started. Mayhap moreso, reminded of his old failings. Reminded of the day the curse was placed which had allowed him to remain when Aymeric had ——, the day when his dreams and life plans died before transforming into something else. Into something that had, in the end, felt like far more than he ever deserved. Unexpected, but wonderful. But cursed all the same.

“I remember the man who bore the title of last true Azure Dragoon. The Viscount always laughed the title off- it really  _ was _ just a title for him, impractical, its meaning far different than the original’s. But I remember that Azure Dragoon, who soared through the sky to defend our fair nation. The man who let my mother off the night after her husband died despite her commander insisting she needed to work. The man who came for me when I got myself stuck up on a ledge at age six because I’d somehow made my way up to the highest point of a chapel and had then fallen out of a window into a place unreachable by ladder.

“I remember the man, not the myth. And that man was wonderful.  _ Is _ wonderful. The dear Viscount, may Halone guide his soul and ever preserve him, knew that too. Man is allowed to grieve.” The Archbishop held the envelope out again. Estinien stared at it a moment before slowly reaching out to take it. It had a slight weight to it. There was a paper and some piece of metal inside. “Within is a permit and special seal that should grant you access to Ser Aymeric’s grave, buried among Ishgard’s heroes, forevermore. So long as I live they will be recognized, and I have begun preparing documents so that my successor and their successor and so on will recognize them as well. Not that I believe something as weak as permission would stop you, given your reputation especially from your younger days, but I thought you might appreciate being able to see him without having to worry about guards or having to avoid being spotted.”

Estinien stared at the Archbishop. Opened his mouth to say something. Then closed it again, pulling the envelope to his chest and looking down.

The Archbishop chuckled. “You needn’t say anything. I know how hard these things can be. Generally, at least. No man can ever fully know another’s feelings, least of all those of someone like you. But I understand to at least some extent, as well as I can, and what you’ve done is enough.” He bowed his head. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for Ishgard. I hope to see you grace the city streets once again before I pass, but if you do not, then let it be known that I am grateful for your service, both directly by your actions and indirectly by being the late Viscount’s pillar of strength and hope. I know he loved you dearly. You will both be missed.”

Something in Estinien’s chest hurt terribly at that last bit. So with a quick turn of the heel, he marched out of the room, breaking into a sprint once outside and Jumping until he was outside of the city walls.

He should’ve stayed for the Aetheryte. But he didn’t. So he kept moving until he reached the Steel Vigil, a new and currently unoccupied Aetheryte transporting him to the foot of Zenith.

Hraesvelgr was waiting for him atop the tower when he arrived.

“What did you do,” Estinien began, voice and body shaking, “when Shiva died?”

Hraesvelgr closed his eyes, feathers rustling in the wind. A grief more potent than any Estinien had felt, just barely more than his own, washed over him. “‘Tis most painful, to lose the greatest and most true object of thy love to the cruelties of time. A fate which thou cannot forestall. A pain thou knowest wilt one day come, yet art powerless to prevent.”

Estinien swallowed. He didn’t need comfort. His source of that had died and he had given up on it altogether. “How did you carry on?”

Hraesvelgr’s eyes opened, over a thousand years of pain reflecting on the surface of deep gold. “The actions thou takest should be thine own decision.”

“But how did  _ you _ do it?” Estinien pressed, desperate for something,  _ anything. _

“...” A deep rumbling came from Hraesvelgr’s chest. The vibrations reverberated through the air, piercing Estinien to the bone. “I did give in to cowardice and did sleep for many a year. Time tooketh my love hence from me, and I desired time would numb my pains.”

Estinien looked down, eyes on gloves he knew hid black scales, red veins, parts of himself he hated so strongly for what they symbolized. For what they had taken from him in his own preservation. “Sleep, then…”

“It did not succeed.”

Estinien let out a bitter laugh. “What else do I have to do? I can’t go back. Not now. Not when his influence is everywhere and memories are everywhere and I-” His voice finally broke. “What choice do I have? There is no victory. Not now. Not  _ yet _ .” He inhaled sharply. “What Shiva founded was gone. What Aymeric did is not. It will do just fine without me. I will not do fine with it. Not now. Maybe after some time has passed, after Ishgard has changed even if I have not…”

Hraesvelgr sighed. “If it be true that is what thou wish, I shall not stop thee. Wither wilt thou rest?”

“...” He didn’t know. He couldn’t return to the de Borel mansion. He felt he would simply break if he did. Ferndale had long since been destroyed, and he wasn’t in the mood to build a house on its ruins. Alberic’s place had been bought up by a young family decades ago, after the man passed from old age.

Another sigh, this one different. Knowing. And not like the Archbishop’s half knowing, but a real knowledge that resonated with his soul, with his  _ spirit _ . “Climb upon mine back, and I shall take thee to that place where I rest. Thou wilt forever beest welcome with me.” 

Estinien paused for a moment. Thought about the pressure that had been building in his back over the past several decades. The feeling of phantom limbs. The thought that if he allowed himself too, he could reach the sky even without a Jump.

And then he let the thought fade away, stepping forward and Jumping just high enough to land on the soft plumage nestled between the scales on Hraesevlgr’s back.

Maybe one day he would. He wasn’t sure. He didn’t know what he was doing anymore.

As a child, he lived to enjoy life, working hard so that one day he could take over his father’s flock as a shepherd. As an orphan, he lived to get his revenge, each day spent bettering himself so he could one day best Nidhogg, no plan for what came after. As a former vessel, free citizen, he spent his days working to make Ishgard into the place Aymeric dreamed it to be, always for Aymeric, whatever it was he wished.

He had no plan anymore. No goals. No specific people or things to reach.

Maybe he would eventually. Hopefully he would eventually. 

But he was tired. He didn’t know what to do. Had forgotten how he’d grieved for his family and village over a century before.

So he let his eyes drift closed upon Hraesvelgr’s back, and let his mind drift to Aymeric.

“Halone,” he breathed, voice soft. “Please protect him, and guide him, and give him all he may ever desire and more. Give anything You would have given me to him. He deserves it far more than I do, and it would make me far happier for him to receive Your blessing than me. Please. Let him be happy. Let him be at peace.”

And his voice was carried off into the wind. Out, away, over the fog of the Churning Mists, over the snows of Coerthas, over the stone peaks of Ishgard...

**Author's Note:**

> Well then. There it was. First thing I'll say is that I experimented a bit with formatting in this one. If you picked up on it, before the ending scene none of the dialogue is spoken in quotes, and only Estinien and Aymeric ever speak. Aymeric only ever uses the word You, and never the word I. Because this is Estinien's story, and I wanted to convey a sort of intimacy in Aymeric's speech by having his words flow directly in the same paragraphs as Estinien's thoughts as he spoke directly to Estinien, as opposed to removed in quotes as I did for the Archbishop and Hraesvelgr. Now, did it work? Ehh, I'm a little shaky on it. But that's the idea I had, and the one I ran with, so I hope it worked well enough to tolerate.
> 
> Next, pacing and emotions and all that. Originally, Estinien was mostly apathetic from the get-go. But he isn't like that in game, and so in my revisions I tried to go back and make his emotional development more gradual. He's dealing with a century of changing perceptions as the realization of being left behind sinks in and the people come up with their own, increasingly reverent ideas of him that he would never have liked in the first place. From laughing to annoyed to apathetic. That's sort of what I was going for.
> 
> Other than that...I've had so many thoughts about this fic that I've forgotten all it was I wanted to say. Perhaps I'll come back to add them here if I remember, perhaps not. If you want a happy fluffy story where they do officially get together, I posted one yesterday that I imagine will be a bit more popular than this so check that out! But that's about it. So thank you for reading, and all comments and kudos are much appreciated.
> 
> Until next time,  
> Mariyekos


End file.
